Tab Content: People

Lancaster University

• Monideepa Tarafdar
• Bran Knowles (Data Science)
• Yang Hu (Sociology)
• Malik Imran Ahmad
• Irina Rets
• Jabir Alshehabi Al-Ani

Essex University

• Hongsheng Dai
• Berthold Lausen
• Shenggang Hu

University of Alberta

• Bei Jiang
• Linglong Kong
• Karen Hughes
• Nicole Denier
• Lei Ding
• Alla Konnikov
• Dengdeng Yu
• Wenxing Guo
• Jinhan Xie

Tab Content: Publications

Publications coming soon

Tab Content: Advisory Board - part 1

Henrik Nordmark has a passion for the interplay between mathematics, psychology and philosophy and how these can be applied to have a positive impact in the real world. As Head of Data Science at Profusion, he leads our team of data scientists, analysts and engineers to apply statistics and machine learning in novel ways to solve business problems. He leads R&D of data science techniques, working with our university partners to bring the cutting edge of the latest thinking to the business sector, and leading our innovation projects funded by Innovate UK. Having built our own team, he now spearheads our Data Academy to train new talent to enter the profession and help our clients build their teams. A Visiting Fellow at the University of Essex, he guest lectures in data science. His own academic background included completing two degrees simultaneously in Mathematics and Psychology with High Distinction before an MSc in Statistics & Computer Science which won the Townsend Prize for best MSc dissertation of the year. While at Profusion, he completed an Executive MBA at Hult International Business School and was named in the Data IQ 100 2018, as one of the top 100 most influential data professionals in the UK.

Professor James Hendler is the Director of the Institute for Data Exploration and Applications and the Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web and Cognitive Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also is acting director of the RPI-IBM Artificial Intelligence Research Collaboration and serves as a member of the Board of the UK’s charitable Web Science Trust. Hendler has authored over 400 books, technical papers and articles in the areas including artificial intelligence, such as "Social Machines: The Coming Collision of Artificial Intelligence, Social Networking, and Humanity" (2016). In his recent work, James is looking at representation inequality in conversational AI with respect to ethnicity and non-binary (or trans) gender issues.

Lee Gudgeon has worked in the recruitment industry for over 22 years and has held the position of Managing Director of Reed Talent Solutions (RTS) since 2016.

Reed Talent Solutions delivers bespoke, outsourced recruitment contracts to both local and national organisations across the UK. Lee is responsible for driving the performance and growth of RTS by continuously innovating services through identifying innovative solutions to today's resourcing challenges.

Lee has been instrumental in developing the RTS mission: to provide digital workforce solutions that deliver measurable benefits to clients and customers. To achieve this, RTS champions a culture of continuous improvement and innovation, driven by the company motto “Better Never Stops”

With a background in building relationships and successfully implementing recruitment solutions, engaging with clients, identifying their resourcing challenges and designing solutions that are successfully delivered is still Lee’s favourite part of his role.

Trusted with more than £550m of recruitment spend each year, RTS has a team of more than 330 talent experts who place over 20,000 contingent workers weekly and 5,000 permanent workers a year. Connect with Lee on LinkedIn.

Professor Randy Goebel

is currently professor of Computing Science in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta, Associate Vice President (Research) and Associate Vice President (Academic), and Fellow and co-founder of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII). He received the B.Sc. (Computer Science), M.Sc. (Computing Science), and Ph.D. (Computer Science) from the Universities
of Regina, Alberta, and British Columbia, respectively.

Professor Goebel's theoretical work on abduction, hypothetical reasoning and belief revision is internationally well know, and his recent research is focused on the formalization of visualization and explainable artificial intelligence (XAI). He has worked on optimization, algorithm complexity, systems biology, and natural language processing, including applications in legal reasoning and medical informatics.

Goebel continues to run the Explainable AI Lab within the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, which he co-founded, working in a broad variety of research areas, including algorithm complexity, systems biology, and natural language processing, with a focus on legal reasoning and medical informatics. He is also academic lead of the University of Alberta Precision Health Signature Area.

Randy has previously held faculty appointments at the University of Waterloo, University of Tokyo, Multimedia University (Kuala Lumpur), Hokkaido University (Sapporo), visiting researcher engagements at National Institute of Informatics (Tokyo), DFKI (Germany), and NICTA (now Data61, Australia); is actively involved in collaborative research projects in Canada, Japan, China, and Germany.

Professor Nancy Reid is University Professor and Canada Research Chair in Statistical Methodology at the University of Toronto. Her research interests are in statistical theory, likelihood inference, and design of studies.

She is the former Director of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute, and has served on the scientific advisory panels of the National Program on Complex Data Structures, the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, the Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Sciences, the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and the Banff International Research Station. From 2010 through 2012 she chaired the steering committee for the Long Range Plan for Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Research in Canada, which was published in December 2012.

She is a past-president of the Statistical Society of Canada and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), and a past member of NSERC Council. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her awards include the Krieger-Nelson prize of the Canadian Mathematical Society and the Gold Medal of the Statistical Society of Canada. In 2014 she was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada.

Tab Content: Advisory Board Continued

Dr Charmaine B. Dean is Vice-President, Research and International at the University of Waterloo. In this role, she is focused on building upon foundational strengths to heighten the emphasis on collaborations, and link related external portfolios in a systematic approach to industrial partners and entrepreneurship.

From 2011 to 2017, Dr Dean served as Dean of Science at Western University. Prior to her service at Western, she played a major role in establishing the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in her capacity of Associate Dean of that Faculty. Previously, she was the founding Chair of the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at Simon Fraser University.

An engaged member of several relevant boards including, Compute Ontario, the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform, the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the Institute for Cybersecurity and Privacy, Dr Dean has also served as a board member for the US National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) Corporation, the National Institute for Complex Data Structures and the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute. She is dedicated to developing outstanding computing capabilities for researchers and for building capacity in Canada and is interested in bringing together diverse communities to drive forward a unified direction for data management activities and priorities.

Jonathan Crook has worked in the technology industry for over ten years, with particular emphasis on Enterprise Applications implemented as Software as a Service. He has worked with companies all over the world, from Lebanon to Argentina and in industries as varied as logistics and utilities. Two of the Enterprise Applications developed were shortlisted for UK innovation awards.

Jonathan has an academic background in strategic studies and risk management, with degrees from Lancaster University, University of Leicester and Madras University, India, together with a full time MBA from Hult International Business School. He has a previous military career and spent time working in data analysis for the purposes of counter-terrorism.

Balkerne provides property risk management software for the insurance and property industry, with the core platform used by a number of brokers and property owners. The company is part of the UK's Digital Catapult for the application of Machine Learning.

Matissa Hollister is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. She received a Master's of City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University. Professor Hollister’s research examines how the employer-employee relationship has changed over the past five decades in North America and other developed countries. Particular areas of focus include the rise of job instability, the move from internal to external labour markets, and the impact of technology and artificial intelligence on employment practices and outcomes. She is currently serving as the McGill University Fellow with the World Economic Forums’ Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Professor Hollister is leading an initiative on the responsible use of AI in Human Resources.

Leah Ruppanner is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of The Policy Lab at the University of Melbourne. Her research investigates gender and its intersection to inequalities, technologies and policies. Associate Professor Ruppanner is leading a project on gender bias in hiring algorithms to understand how gender bias limits women’s access to employment in Australia and the US. This project builds upon Ruppanner’s breadth of expertise on gender inequality in the home, workplace, and government. Associate Ruppanner is a leading expert on COVID-19 and its impact on gender inequality in US and Australia. Her book, Motherlands: How States Push Mothers out of Employment (2020) provides a typology of childcare and gender policies and their relationship to mothers' employment varies across US states. This has led to a range of high impact publications showing women have divergent experiences based on their state of residence. Ruppanner's research is published in Demography, Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociological Methods and Research, European Sociological Review and Social Science Research. She also has expansive media coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post and the Guardian and external grant success including the ARC DECRA, an ARC Discovery on sleep and an ARC Linkage on women in local government.

Keith Rosser is a Group Director of the world's largest family-owned recruitment business, REED, and is Director of Reed Screening, a large pre-employment vetting business within the Group. Keith is also responsible for REED Group's risk and corporate governance agenda, sitting on the Audit & Risk Committee at board level.

Keith has over 5 years’ experience as a Non-Executive Director, both at Disclosure Scotland - an executive agency of Scottish Government - and Glasgow Clyde College.

Within industry, Keith is Chair of the Better Hiring Institute, a government and industry initiative to drive the future of digital, ethical hiring in the UK. Through the BHI Keith sits on the DCMS Digital Identity committee representing the labour market.

Keith is a Council Member of the European global pre-employment vetting trade association, the PBSA, Chair of the Criminal Records Trade Body (CRTB) which represents industry with the UK criminal record checking agencies, and chair of a recruitment industry standards committee. Keith is an Advisory Board Member of Cifas, the UK's fraud prevention organisation and is the Chair of Release Scotland, a charity which works with Scottish Government on criminal record reforms, representing the business voice around employing people with convictions.

Keith is a labour market expert with over 18 years' experience and Chair of JobsAware, a charity founded by the Metropolitan Police that tackles labour market exploitation targeting vulnerable workers, supported by then Labour Market Director, Matthew Taylor, and Members of the House of Lords. Keith was Chair of the first cross-Government labour market association, ASCOR, comprising (amongst others) Home Office, trade unions, and BEIS. Keith was appointed to the Ministerial Advisory Panel on the Taylor Review (Good Work Plan) and his work has featured in each Labour Market Strategy.

Keith received a Commendation Award from Home Office in 2016 for services to recruitment and was recognised as a Community Leader at Buckingham Palace in 2018. Previously Keith sat on the Name Blind Recruitment Committee headed up by then Prime Minister, David Cameron.